I was cramming for my 2nd year Biochemistry exams in an attic room in Queens Road when I heard these guys walking down the road strumming guitars and looked out the window. Saw some guys heading towards the Royal Park and I went back to cramming & didn't go down the boozer that night.

The pictures above are definitely the back of the Royal Park.

Friends of mine were down there and one of them Donna, pinched Strummer's arse. The University Student paper ran a bit on it and I remember seeing the photos in it - maybe they keep a record....

They stayed with friends of a friend Martin. Story was that Strummer was so hard to get on with he was 'moved' around quite a bit as no one could spend any time with him.

Glad this is on here otherwise I don't think people would believe me when I recall the story.

Jogon wroteColonI remember mates saying they'd seen them at the time.But the venues and sheer oddity of it seemed to rule it out and since then I've thought it a Leeds Rock-History Urban-Myth.Seems they played May 4th - Leeds pubs & clubs, then Le PhonographicMay 6th - Royal Park PubMay 7th - (outside) Leeds Uni then The FavershamCan anyone shed light and offer images or some footage?

the actual date was may 5th. There was no multi-band gig going on though it is true The Magnificent 7 did organise such events, there at the Royal Park and many other venues. Fact is, we were allowed to rehearse upstairs and store our gear there in return for playing every thursday. That weekend we had been playing in Manchester friday 3rd and sat 4th. We returned to Leeds to drop the gear off beck at the Royal Park tea-timish. It so happens that The Clash were being subversive - turning up at pop concerts of The Alarm who they thought were crap rip-offs pandering to music execs. So they would give those queuing for this 'radical popcorn' music a taste what real anti-establishment punk sounded like. They waited for those queues to from down at the Royal Park - then we turned up unloading our instruments. They grabbed them and played an impromptu set. That's the story. They will have had their own guitars etc somewhere stashed for use later on and they might have gone elsewhere such as the Fav, but that's the story about them at the Royal Park.

PS It wasn't The Original Clash by then. Only Strummer and Simenon remained from earlier times. You can hardly see on the photo but the guitar Paul Simenon is playing has a couple of stickers on it- Wham and Take That, and that was back before it was hip to like either - I guess Paul chose that Washburn to play because he could distinguish crap pop from cool pop. Good man.